**Source:** Lenin Miscellany, Volume III
**Note:** dated March 20, 1901

34.
20/III–01 [Munich].

Dear P. B.! I have received all your letters and conveyed news from her old friend to my aunt¹).
You were wrong to worry about the addresses and to think that something had changed. I still live in the same place, and you should write to me at the same address:

Herrn Georg Rittmeyer
Kaiserstr. 53/0
München.
inside: für Meyer.

My wife²) I do not expect for some time yet: her term only ends on Sunday, and then she must make a detour somewhere, so she is unlikely to be able to come before the second half of April.
And even when she arrives, it will still be possible to write to Rittmeyer, since he will always pass on letters to me, and I, in turn, will inform you in good time of any change of address.

There is trouble with *Zarya*. This capricious fellow Dietz³) has flatly rejected your editorial article, being afraid of references to *Iskra*, having detected the smell of "groups," etc., citing the fact that both Bebel and Singer (shareholders in his G.m.b.H.)⁴) are nervous, and so on. We have had, to our great regret, to abandon your article, placing in its stead a couple of words "To the Readers"⁵). This new censorship is terribly annoying! And the cover has suffered: they even crossed out "several Russian social-democrats"! When will we be rid of the "guardianship" of these Dreck-Genosses⁶)?!

There is also unpleasantness with Telyonok (Judas [Struve]): a letter has come from his friend (= the presumed source of money = goldene Wanze⁷)) very angry that he is sending 200 (two hundred!) rubles to *Sovremennoye Obozreniye*⁸) and bear in mind, he says, that it is not for you but precisely for this enterprise. We are all indignant, and it has been decided: 1) not to publish a statement about a coalition, 2) to send Telyonok [Struve] and the "friend" an *ultimatum*, that either there is proper financing of *our* enterprise, or we withdraw, 3) finish the Witte note⁹).

Well, is it not true, have we not been duped again by Judas [Struve]??

One consolation: No. 2 of *Iskra* got safely to Russia, is having success, correspondence is coming in abundantly. In Russia the devil knows what is going on: demonstrations in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Kazan, Moscow is under martial law (there they arrested, among others, my youngest sister¹⁰) and even my brother-in-law¹¹) who never participated in anything!), massacres, overcrowded prisons, etc.

In a few days we expect my brother [Martov] and our mutual friend—Feld¹²) to arrive (at last!), having fulfilled all requirements (so far) without incident.

We have printed the May leaflet¹³), and then we shall set about No. 3 of *Iskra*, and perhaps No. 4 at the same time—there is a mass of material.

*Zarya* will come out on Saturday—they say—and will be sent to you directly from Stuttgart.

Our cash situation is very bad. Therefore for now we must absolutely refrain from any expenditure on hiring a translator (as you were contemplating).

I press your hand firmly. Your Meyer.

---

¹) According to N. K. Krupskaya, "aunt" was what they called A. M. Kalmykova, though it is possible that here "aunt" refers to V. I. Zasulich. The old friend of V. I. Zasulich might have been Dobrogeanu-Gherea, as V. I. Zasulich was a participant in the Russian revolutionary movement of the 1870s.

²) N. K. Krupskaya was completing her term of exile in Ufa.

³) J. H. W. Dietz (1834–1922), publisher of *Zarya*, conducted strict censorship of *Zarya* articles, removing from them anything that might even slightly indicate the connection of *Zarya* with social-democrats working in Russia and with *Iskra*. In Axelrod's article, which was intended as a leading article for No. 1 of *Zarya*, Dietz likewise saw dangerous passages which, in his opinion, could open the eyes of the German police to the connection of German social-democrats with the *Iskra* group, and consequently with revolutionaries operating in Russia. From the phrase that was supposed to appear on the cover: "Published with the direct participation of G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Zasulich, P. B. Axelrod and several Russian social-democrats"—Dietz deleted the last five words.

⁴) G[eselschaft] m[it] b[eschränkter] H[aftung]—"Limited Liability Company"—referring to Dietz's publishing house, the shareholders of which were A. Bebel and Singer.

⁵) Here are these lines from the first issue of *Zarya*:
"TO THE READERS.
The motto of the old world once proclaimed: le roi est mort, vive le roi! As we begin our organ, *Zarya*, we proclaim: Censored Russian Marxism has died, having outlived itself—peace to its ashes—and long live the free thought of revolutionary social-democracy—that palladium of Russian liberation!
The waves of the workers' movement rise ever higher and higher, public indignation against the oppressive chains of autocracy grows, and upon the Russian social-democrat—the writer—the task bears down ever more imperatively: to give meaning to each step in the forward movement, in the process of its half-spontaneous growth, to indicate paths and means, to outline a program, to form agitators, and, waging relentless struggle with the representatives of contemporary "criticism," to awaken theoretical thought and to bear into the broad strata of the reading masses that "spirit of life" without which no great liberation movement will ever gain strength.
Whether *Zarya* will succeed, in this present moment of theoretical crisis and practical chaos, in fulfilling even part of the tasks it has set itself—the future will show. For now we submit our first issue to the judgment of readers."
Judging by the style, these lines belong to A. N. Potresov.

⁶) Dreck-Genosse—scoundrel comrade.

⁷) Literally: "golden bug"; a money-bag. According to A. N. Potresov, this was D. N. Zhukovskii, who gave 1000 rubles for the publication of *Iskra*.

⁸) *Sovremennoye Obozreniye* (Contemporary Review)—a projected supplement to *Zarya* (see letter 25, note 1).

⁹) S. Witte's secret memorandum "Autocracy and the Zemstvo" was published by *Zarya* with a preface by P. Struve (signed P. N. S.). This publication remained the sole result of the planned joint publishing venture of *Iskra* and Struve. Lenin subjected Struve's preface to devastating criticism in a special article in the next issue (No. 2–3) of *Zarya*.

¹⁰) Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova was arrested in the spring of 1901 in Moscow in connection with the case of the Moscow Committee of the R.S.D.R.P.

¹¹) Mark Timofeevich Elizarov, husband of Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova, Vladimir Ilyich's elder sister.

¹²) Feld—it was not possible to establish who is meant.

¹³) The *Iskra* leaflet—"The First of May"—was issued in April. The author of the leaflet has not been established.